Falls Count Anywhere

11/09/10

I have my working fishnets on.

Sometimes, TNA will happily recognize the existence of the WWE, and the announcing in this match made reference that the two of them had feuded in WWE. That’s a nice touch, like they would do in Mid-Atlantic back in the old days.

The two came in and it was a brawl, and a pretty good one. Mickie can go, and Tara just needs to be motivated, something that hasn’t happened as much lately. Here, she had her working fishnets on and it showed pretty early. Tara had been tossed outside and Mickie was reaching for her over the top rope when Tara caught her and gave her a neckbreaker on top of the top rope. It was awesome.

These two had a great brawl, not pretty, for sure, but it showed real anger. It was a brawl mostly in the ring at first, which is something we don’t see that often. Tara had the advantage a lot, and Mickie made her comebacks through her flying. Mickie does a really nice Missile Dropkick.

Tara has a crazy gimmick. Some guys like that.

There was also a weird, but awesome and pretty dangerous, spot that got a good pop. Mickie was going for something off the top, but Tara punched her in the stomach so Mickie sat down on the turnbuckle. Tara then climbed, as if she was going to give her a Hurrancanrana, but Mickie Grabbed her and put Tara on her lap, which got a pop itself and led to Taz making some lame girl-on-girl porn jokes. It was a sad statement, but the audience thought it was cool and then Mickie seemed to jerk Tara down, who was clinging to her and both went off the top, to the apron, and then to the floor.

That’s a dangerous spot; they had two times when a tangled limb could easily have been twisted or broken (like Tommy Dreamer broke his wrist later in the show). It was not a hugely dangerous spot in image, but in reality, it could have gone very wrong. Luckily, it didn’t.

After that spot, they brawled around ringside. This wasn’t the crispest brawl, but there was real anger in it. The selling was only OK from Mickie, better from Tara, and the offense was realistic, which is nice. They brawled and it seemed like they really hated each other. Not a lot of dangerous headshots, a garbage can shot maybe, but nothing over the top. They eventually pushed the ref who had come to try and get them back into the ring, and that led to a DQ. The match was a Double DQ, but they kept brawling and the crowd was really into it, specifically chanting ‘Let them fight!’ and booing as the security tried to break them up.

Mickie broke away and went into the ring, calling for Tara to come in. Tara broke away from Security and headed into the ring where she brawled with Mickie more as the Security got in to try and keep them apart.

The entire thing was really good, the best TNA Knockout’s match since Amazing Kong left. Tara did her crazy gimmick and Mickie did her spunky gimmick and this is why they got Mickie, because she can go, and Tara, who is amazingly hot and never moreso than she is now, can play her role and works off of Mickie very well.

The last woman’s brawl that I thought was this powerful was way back in the heart of the Attitude era, I’m thinking 1999 or 2000. It was a Backstage brawl between Ivory and Teri. They went all over the backstage area in a brawl that would have compared fairly with the legendary Tupelo Concession Stand Brawls of the early 1980s. It was awesome, and while this didn’t quite get to that level, it was awesome.

The rest of the PPV? OK. The retirement match of Team 3D was a really good match for many of the same reasons that the Mickie-Tara match was awesome. It did have an amazing spot where Bubba set up a table leaning against the corner, Sabin was thrown into it, but took a step on it and did a backflip, which led to Bubba charging him and going through. That was an awesome spot. Dreamer and RVD had a weird match that had little heat. The Main Event pretty much sucked, and Samoa Joe and Jarrett had the kind of match that I would have enjoyed but they didn’t give Joe anything to make him look like the star he should be.

That’s all for now!

Chris Garcia